Tin Shingle’s Blog Of All The Latest in Media, Money, Your PR and Marketing Strategy and Life as a Small Biz Owner
Photo Credit: CBS News
Gayle King is a broadcast journalist for CBS News, co-hosting CBS This Morning, and an editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine.
On Wednesday, SiriusXM announced that the CBS This Morning co-host will host a live weekly program exclusively on SiriusXM Stars channel 109. (TVNewser)
Gayle King and other people are available for researching in Tin Shingle’s Media Contact Idea Center. Apply for Tin Shingle membership today to get access!
Photo Credit: The New York Times
In the days since the coronavirus pandemic forced hiatus, the late-night comedy shows are gradually coming back. Many of them returned to their familiar broadcast time slots, but in completely different forms.
A few days ago, Samantha Bee was filming a segment for her TBS late-night series, "Full Frontal With Samantha Bee", when she encountered something she typically doesn't come across in studio. “There was literally a screeching hawk, circling up in the sky,” Samantha Bee recalled, speaking from her home in upstate New York.
During this time, we are all adapting to new changes, new routines and new TV. “It feels like the end of the world, and it’s not, but we also cannot treat it like nothing is happening. So we do have to find that balance," said Trevor Noah, the host of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central.
Most of the late-night shows recorded their last episodes around March 12, as social-distancing and self-quarantining guidelines were being adopted. Casts and crews contemplated their next steps and have decided to air from home. Maybe their makeup isn't perfect, but they are crushing this video thing!
Tin Shingle has added Media Contacts for, The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live and Late Night with Seth Meyers to their database.
Currently working on, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.
Tin Shinglers with the Media Kit Membership get access to any and all Media Contacts. Apply for Tin Shingle membership today to get access!
Photo Credit: Business Of Home
After three years, Whitney Robinson has stepped down as the Editor-In-Chief for Elle Decor to focus on his design consulting business, DW NorthStar. A replacement has not yet been named and Robinson will remain a contributing editor for Elle Decor.
Robinson began his career at Hearst and has held multiple roles at Hearst Tower since joining House Beautiful as a market editor in 2005. Before joining Elle Decor, he was the style director at Town & Country and also worked as deputy editor for Metropolitan Home. With this, Robinson helped launch Qulture.com, an arts and culture website for the Middle East.
Whitney Robinson and other people are available for researching in Tin Shingle’s Media Contact Idea Center. Apply for Tin Shingle membership today to get access!
Today we talked with retail and boutique expert Sarah Shaw who told us about Drop Shipping - maybe your new way of selling through retailers.
Drop Shipping has been around for years, and used to be one of the ways the "indie" designers got their goods to market, without having a retail store take a risk on them with a wholesale order. It's when a retail shop lists a designer as a brand they sell - but they don't pay up front for it. They pay the designer (or producer of product) when an order is made. Then the designer ships the product from their base.
Today, drop-shipping is done by Amazon, Wayfair, and others. It's big business, and in the time of coronavirus, an even less-averse way for retailers to connect their customers with brands like yours.
Or - maybe you run a shop and are looking for new products and designers to sell, with less risk of carrying inventory.
Today, we talked with Sarah Shaw, retail expert who has been working in this space for years.
Topics We Covered:
Pitching retailers with the drop ship option - how to pitch them.
Terms to consider.
What percentage is “normal.”
What percentage should be normal? We don’t want to live too low if we don’t need to.
Return policies and experiences.
Packaging.
If defective, who to call?
Pricing. Is your own retail pricing high enough to absorb the wholesale.
Sales: what’s the norm on putting product on sale at your own website if your drop shippers or wholesalers aren’t.
Is this a trend that is growing?
When is it time to stop? When is it too much of a pain to deal with?
What to watch out for?
Payment terms: what should you push for to get paid. We don’t want people waiting.
Get ideas! Join Tin Shingle’s Media Kit Membership for access.
Tin Shinglers with the Media Kit Membership get 24/7 access to watch any TuneUp whenever they want. Apply for Tin Shingle membership today to get access!
One way that designers, food makers, skin care mixers, authors, virtually anyone who sells anything, got PR was if a celebrity was spotted wearing or using or eating their product. PR firms built a business around this. Business owners doing their own PR harnessed how to do this. However. Now that the United States is on a Stay At Home status, with New York and California on extreme lock-down, this method raises a few questions:
1. How does one get the product to the celebrity? Who is also (safely) stuck in their house or mansion or apartment?
2. The outlet that this mainly appeared in were magazines. But as we learned in a past TuneUp, magazines are an "essential" business, but they area also socially distanced, the printers sometimes may not be able to print.
What to do? We talked with celebrity gifting expert Sarah Shaw who has been building a strategy for this.
Watch the video HERE!
Media Kit Membership get 24/7 access to watch any TuneUp whenever they want. Sign up HERE.
Here’s how it really feels to quarantine with kids during this COVID-19 pandemic. I’ll start with my fingers. They are tingling as I type this because they have been so cold on my daily early morning jog, before my 3 kids and husband wake up, and are now warming up from my cicrulating blood after my morning run. Before the other joggers and most dog walkers are out. Before any social distancing friend-walks start. A combination of circulation issues from morning coffee making everything cold, and the darn spring air that has cold moisture hanging in it each day, blocking that warm spring breeze feeling.
Every single morning I wake up, I have goals. Behind that goal is the impending sense of doom that it won’t happen. It won’t happen because 3 little kids awake and want to play Xbox; want to authenticate Fortnite on the laptop; want to accept a friend invite to a Zoom chat, and just want to play cars on the floor. All before breakfast.
When I boundary up - which means to say No to them, to let the Xbox and Barbie and the new Fornite drama show where the characters don’t move their mouths but have personalities be on all day. I literally hide from my toddler as he chases me out the door if I run to the car to have silence to have the luxury of completing a thought - I get questioned by my quarantine partner - my husband - who thinks I’m acting strangely (I’ve written about this before in my former newspaper column).
When I - the former primary caregiver when my partner is working (gone, job lost, but that’s normal for him as he’s a film industry person, so this whole unemployment filing thing and sucky website and call-center thing is old hat - I’m glad it’s finally getting an upgrade) - and a small business owner who happens to be working during this pandemic - when I boundary up to work, I feel like I have to defend it.
Each morning, I put my computer in my shed - my new office location - to attempt to write an article or send a newsletter before re-entering the house after my jog - before everyone wakes up and needs instant oatmeal and fluffy scrambled eggs that they may or may not eat - depending on the mood.
However, this spring has been so cold, that I also do a backup location of my car with keys, so that I can turn it on and work in the heat. Trouble is, the only way I can execute this is if I’m really committed emotionally. It’s hard to break through the barrier of “Where have you been?” or “Working in the car?” And to be really committed emotionally means I have to be angry. Being angry is the only way to continue moving forward. Because when I’m nice, I get stepped on and left to have to do this surrounded by 2 TVs that either have kids programming or national news on them, and 1 device that has Baby Shark and Hulk Smash. And legit requests for banana/strawberry smoothies and peeled apples.
The last time I got a big article out, I had Billie Eilish on repeat. Today I have Icona Pop, with “I Love It” kicking my jog into high gear - warming my bones that honestly feel like they are going to crack if I hit a bump the wrong way and I’m not paying 100% attention to catch myself.
As a business owner in the media, this is my time. I write articles. I report on local issues. I advise businesses how to get the word out during a time when the media is consumed with catching up from Yesterday’s News every single day.
As a business owner, I don’t have a boss stressing me out, making me do anything. I am the boss making me do things. And it takes an incredible amount of self-discipline to keep going with those ideas. Especially when my currency is advertising, and I don’t know who to pitch because I know how many industries are hemorrhaging right now.
I don’t know who to charge advertising to, because we all need to make it. I can’t file for unemployment because I have some money coming in. I can apply for a SBA Loan, but that takes research. But I did it, we’ll see what the bank says. I can get my taxes submitted on time, and hope for a refund. I can pitch advertisers like big medical groups or website companies or newsletter companies for advertising, as they presumablly are still in business.
This hustle is nothing new to a business owner. Entrepreneurs are used to risk. It is part of our DNA. We thrive on it. But in a pandemic, in self-isolation, in a place where you can’t hug your friends, it’s really, really a different space. To constantly turn away from your family all day every day to try to stay caught up, and live with my truth that I didn’t get my currency out - articles and newsletter. That’s it. That’s all I have to do. Is write. But writing requires research and homework and waiting for people to get back to you.
And then the window of publishing has passed and you’re onto a new subject. Like, I was doing Medical Mask Makers 2 weeks ago, and it’s still not out. And what is bubbling up now is disappearing local budgets and possible cuts to education and whatever is in a local budget or what may have been trickling down from a county budget.
Plus, battling through doubts when people in positions of authority maybe don’t like hearing from you, or think you pesky, or think you chicken little. Or is that just my fear? Or is it truth. Regardless, I have to push through, and that takes bravery and strength. That I need to summon every. single. day.
Couple that with the home-front when you and your partner get to debate about who gets to turn off 100% and be off duty in order to get this done. It’s thick.
When I think of the thickness of a healthcare worker who is treating COVID-19 patients right now, all of this fizzles and becomes non-important. Floating and feelings of insignfigance happen again, like it’s not important enough to battle through. Appreciate life. Appreciate home. And that’s the psychological cycle that business owners who are working from home may be experiencing on repeat.
Fortunately, my hands are still warm as I type this. Hopefully it makes it to the daylight of being published on the other side of this Squarespace website.
Peace. :)
The COVID-19 pandemic is opening our eyes to many things. One of them is working from home and being close to family. Granted, one can hardly work from home if there are small children around, but Savannah Guthrie’s decision to return to work from home - after self-quarantining herself after a coronavirus scare - is a testament to how working from home will become our new normal as the governors of this country band together to figure out our “new normal,” a term embraced by Rhode Island’s Governor, Gina Raimondo during today’s group teal-briefing with New York’s Governor Cuomo as he introduced the 6-governor task force to reopen the country. Oops! I mean region.
This an opportunity for all makeup artists, all stylists, all hair experts. You need to help her! Just kidding. She has her peeps of course, employed by the Today Show, to fix her up But this is the type of opportunity that experts in the beauty field can get creative in. What can you tell her for beauty tips? To make herself on-air ready if her hair and makeup crew isn’t going to come into her home?
False eyelashes: How to falsify the false eyelash when you can’t get to your stylist
Is having kids in the picture OK now in the time of coronavirus?
What’s your work/life schedule like when you need to hit a deadline - like going on air?
Read The Highlights At People.com
Tin Shingle’s beat reporter for the Today Show, Teslie Andrade, loved this article at People.com. There are a few highlights she wants you to read:
“After briefly returning to the studio last week, the newscaster anchored Monday’s broadcast of Today from home, explaining to her co-host Hoda Kotb that she wanted to be close to her family amid the coronavirus pandemic. Guthrie shares 3-year-old son Charley and 5-year-old daughter Vale with husband Michael Feldman.
“‘I’m home. You know, the reason, Hoda — my family is upstate, and so I’m sticking close to the family and coming to the city less and less,” said Guthrie, 48. “So I’m trying to work from home. And also, frankly, that’s what these officials are telling us to do, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’”
Savannah sets the scene at 30 Rock right now in the People article:
“Several other Today show stars are also working remotely, and in a new interview with Page Six, Kotb opened up about the strange experience of coming into the deserted office.
“‘The Today show is normally teeming with people. Even when I arrive, there are people outside 30 Rock waiting for the show to start — they’ve made trips to come see us. But [now] there’s literally not a soul outside,” she said. “I go into the studio and you can hear your footsteps echoing [because] there’s no one there.’”
Hoda Kotb shares what her in-studio experience is like:
“With no stylists or makeup artists, Kotb has been doing her own hair and makeup.
’“I do my hair with, like, a curling iron from the ’80s and really don’t lay eyes on anyone until Savannah pops up on the monitor,” she said.’”
So great. So honest. More of it!
Outfits for Tin Shingle’s TuneUp webinar = getting dressed up. Because enough of this already. I enjoy putting on fancy shoes and my favorite lightening bolt shirt because TuneUp’s are the bomb and include the best Motivation Minute, and really good advice for how to pitch the media right now. Everything must be specially crafted. Outfit from Beacon’s Main Street.
This has @alittlebeacon logo but it’s what I could grab, and I want this message to go to my business friends all over the country. My two companies are blurring in the sense of how we can help with media access and guidance. It’s hard when you have so many important things to write about at once. Reminding us to slowly focus on the one thing you know you need to get done, before moving to the next thing that you really want to do. One thing at a time!
It’s official. Tin Shingle removed Fox News programming from our Media Contacts Idea Center. Their ideas are dangerous! No small business in our sphere should pitch them for publicity or to educate their audience. No on-air debate of poisoned information is worth that. Bye bye! DELETED FOR PROPAGANDA.
